East Court - iQ Student Accommodation London — Attraction in London

Stayed here from Sep 2014 to Sep 2019; it becomes less and less enjoyable. In Sep 2014 the weekly rate of my room is £220-ish. Now it's £250 and might continue to increase. For this price you can stay in a beautiful air-conditioned beachfront hotel room in Bali with a daily buffet breakfast and all the luxury. But okay, this is London. Fire alarm rings frequently; sometimes for testing, sometimes false. They test it every Thursday around noon (time not specified exactly), disturbing those who are in the bedroom to rest and giving an episode of heart attack to those who have the predisposition to it. They said they care about students' health. The ideal humidity for health is about 40-50%. As the room humidity often gets low (

I lived in East Court from September 2022 - April 2024. I just finished moving everything out on the day I'm writing this.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend iQ to those looking for good accomodation near Queen Mary or any other university in East London.

There are some positives to the dorm that I can comment on: Their public spaces and study rooms are top-notch and great for having silence for anything you need to get done. Most of the building is pretty well-maintained, aside from a few areas that smell (but what student dorm doesn't smell?). Although I have had my issues with some staff in the past (which I will bring up below), most of them, especially the newer ones, are very helpful and friendly. I've not had bad face-to-face interactions with any of them, and they've been mostly quick and responsive at the front desk (except for the past two months, which given the constant renovations and flow of residents, leads me to believe they're more understaffed than lazy). The building is in a very good area, especially if you're studying at Queen Mary. Through Mile End station you're very well connected to the rest of east and central London. All essentials are in walking distance. I never once had an issue with collecting parcels or deliveries. The rooms are very quiet. And I mean VERY quiet. Never once filed nor received a noise complaint in either year I lived here, and I scream quite a bit.

That, said, however, the cons MASSIVELY outweigh the pros: Some of the facilities are just too small. Less than 10 barely functioning laundry machines / dryers and a dingy gym that can barely fit 5 people, all for a building of over 500. Ventilation in the rooms is horrible, attributed mostly to a window that can barely open. The rooms are often too warm or too cold without a middle ground. Non-drill smoke alarms are way too frequent. Admittedly, part of it can be surmised to be students that are just not good cooks. But the fact that the building often smells like marijuana in some areas leads me to believe that there are students who openly smoke in their dorms without punishment. One of the worst cons by far is the price. As someone who stayed here two years mostly out of convenience, believe me, trust the reviewers. The room prices are RIDICULOUS. Over 400 pounds a week for their most basic studios, when 400/wk. would easily get you at least 17-18 sq. m. anywhere else. Easily the biggest problem is that the maintenance teams are SLOW and INEFFECTIVE. I had an internet outage in my dorm due to a poorly connected router from November 2023 to May 2024. Yes. SIX. MONTHS. It took the team 2 months just to send around an engineer that couldn't even diagnose the problem at the time. It took another month for them to get a quota for the maintenance, and it took another 3 to finally fix the router. In the midst of this outage, the best they could do was fix a router in the room next to mine, which was still patchy and inconsistent. It seems that they believed the problem was "fixed" then evidently, as I had to chase them up for the next month, reminding them that the initial problem wasn't fixed and that I was essentially paying for a service that didn't work. From December to January, I spent more time in the public areas than I did my own room. It was only in May that they actually fixed the router, a month after I had left because of said internet problems (at the time, I was writing my dissertation and could not afford any hiccups with my connectivity) and WITHOUT INFORMING ME, and at the end of it all they used it as a "gotcha" moment when I made a formal complaint about maintenance to the regional manager. Simply ridiculous. Essentially, if you have any sort of problem with your room, don't expect to have it fixed for at least a month.

Don't be fooled by the location and the amenities. Unless you have the money to burn to get your child into one of the Gold or Platinum studios, or it's between this and one of Queen Mary's frankly awful on-campus dorms, do NOT send...

I would say that IQ is only good for short term. The first half of my time in IQ was a really good experience however, i wish i could say the same about the last half. They solve issues quite quickly and their social and study spaces are great. However I encountered more and more problems the longer i stayed; maintenance- don’t rlly care abt ur things (if they come to paint or drill it gets all over your clothes and they could care less to move it) They also come during early mornings which can be frustrating as someone who finds sleeping difficult. another problem with maintenance is the volume of work that was being done during my move out. I understand that things need to be fixed for incoming students, however doing maintenance all in one week for the whole building is quite crazy.. especially when you’re trying to move out and your things keep getting dirty and you keep being woken up from drilling that lasts 5 hours. it took a really long time to fix the hoovers, and they had no backup option; until i kept persisting for a regular broom. you should invest in one of the bigger studios, it would be much more enjoyable. The treadmill hasn’t been working since middle of the year and they haven’t bothered to fix it. gym facilities in general are very average for the price being paid ; has very basics , but just all mashed up into one small room it gets very hot during summer but windows barely open so lack of air flow can be horrible if you don’t have a fan Some (definitely not all) of the men in iq can be pretty creepy i.e. post grads, some of them just stand around in the hallway and stare, some staff members also heavily stare every single time you walk past the reception which tends to be uncomfortable. however this definitely does not go for all of the staff!! most of them are extremely friendly!! toilets are not very good, they are constantly being fixed and are very difficult to flush. If you’re someone that has a lot of things, then i would not recommend IQ because the lack of space when moving in and moving out is very frustrating. (there’s literally no space to keep your boxes when packing so they have to be kept in the hallways, which can be scary because you never know who could steal/damage your things) The hallways and lift tend to smell of trash/ have wet trash residue because the trash cans are outside so some students leave their trash to pile up of for a long time then take it out (which is genuinely a health hazard)- while i was moving out the lift had trash juice residue and it smelt for 2 or 3 days because the lift is carpeted…) There are also some things the staff did that i really did not appreciate. Firstly, i asked for a room change for the next year ( i also visited other rooms to see which one i wanted) and then was told that the room wasn’t changed because she wasn’t sure if i was being serious about it…? secondly. I decided to cancel my booking for next year (it was past the allowed cancellation date so I had to find someone to take over my tenancy) and when I went to ask questions about finding a tenant, I was told not to worry about it because someone was interested.. so I stopped looking, like they said. All of a sudden the day i’m moving out i was told that the contract was actually still under my name and i was responsible for all payments the following year?? (This was extremely frustrating to me because the staff members watched me move out all of my things for over 30 mins, all by myself which was already really difficult, and then decided to let me know this while my uber was outside waiting for me..? Then when I called the next day they had told me it has already been booked. I just feel like the emotional distress caused was unnecessary and they really did not seem to care at all. I really did enjoy the first few months of staying in IQ so it’s disappointing that this is how things ended. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst place in the world however if you’re anything like me, I wouldn’t not...